My Liberal Agenda ?

Here is another conversation with RRW. Judyw's response to this post is here.

April 26, 2009 at 4:42 pm

Along with many others who have responded to my posts on this website, Vanishing American uses the phrase “people like you.” So I want offer some personal information that hopefully will clarify who I am and point out a problem in the way that people dialog on RRW.

I work with refugees and speak up for refugees because I am motivated by my faith. I make a serious and honest effort to live out an ethic consistent with the teachings of Jesus as they relate to the Old Testament. My values include helping people who need help, honoring the risen Jesus with my words and deeds, living in purity from personal and communal sins, loving people who are not easy to love, caring for people on the fringes of society, and studying, understanding, and applying the Bible.

These are the convictions that lead me to actively care for refugees. These are the convictions that cause me to get upset when people’s loyalty to their own way of life blinds them to the human element of the refugee story. I do not have any allegiance to a liberal attack on Western values. I do what I do and say what I say because of my faith and my personal ties to refugees.

If I have to use partisan terminology to identify myself, here’s some more evidence that I am not who you think I am: I did not vote for Obama. I am pro-life. I do not support gay marriage.

What is the point of me saying all of this? I am not merely defending myself as an individual. Rather, I put myself forward as an example to show that people who work with refugees do so out of a wide range of motivations. To assume that we are all liberals with a plan to destroy conservative values is incorrect and damaging to constructive dialog. Likewise, for me to assume that Vanishing American and all who think like him/her are ignorant, prejudice rednecks would be foolish.

I don’t know the ages of all the people who contribute to this site, but my guess is that there is also a generational issue that contributes to the friction and the emotions that come through in many conversations.

Altogether, I’m doubtful about how much people can learn from each other through this medium of communicating. Too often it’s just two camps throwing words at each other and trying to prove each other wrong. But this site does have potential to lead to meaningful exchanges if people actually listen to each other and are slow to anger.

One of the results, as RRW claims to desire, should be that refugees themselves are better cared for by governments and volags and better received by communities of informed citizens.